


moonlight raising from the grave

by amosanguis



Series: soul-bond/soulmates AUs [21]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brief Graphic Violence and Self-Harm, Character Study, Declining Health, Established Relationship, Jim-centric, M/M, Post-Star Trek Beyond, Soul Bond, Thrown Backwards In Time By The Bad Guys, comfort shows up fifteen minutes late with starbucks, is it angst or melodrama u pick, title from a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27978528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: They call themselves the Olxol and they can bend space and time and, judging from the reports from Earth, they have no interest in being friends. And when theEnterprisearrives too late, they try to go back in time to warn the Federation - but the Olxol interfere, and the consequences, especially on Jim and Spock's bond, are dire.This isn't a story about how they get back to their own time, it's a story about how they find each other - if they even can.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Crew of the Starship Enterprise, James T. Kirk/Spock
Series: soul-bond/soulmates AUs [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/168263
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	moonlight raising from the grave

**Author's Note:**

> Title and section headers from "Sleeping on the Blacktop" by Colter Wall; this fic was largely inspired by Chris Pine's performance in _Hell or High Water_ and this song is in a scene of that movie.

I.

 _String band playing worn out honky-tonks  
_ _Pretty young thing goin' dancing in the rain_

They call themselves the Olxol and they can bend space and time and, judging from the reports from Earth, they have no interest in being friends.

Jim grips his chair, prays to no deity but the _Enterprise_ herself, begging her to go faster, faster, _faster_ \- tells 0718 to do what he needs to to tell the ship what they need from her.

They race across the system - but they're too far away.

“Ready your calculations,” Jim says to Spock and he doesn't have to clarify which calculations he means because Spock is already sliding a padd across the table.

“Sir,” he says, “there will be no return trip. The dilithium crystals will be spent.”

“We're not going to the 20th century, Spock,” Jim says, “we just need to go back a few months.”

Jim regrets the words, they sounded too much like a dare and, indeed, whoever was listening must've taken it as such.

The chronometer scrolls back one month, then two--

Then there's a laugh like the sound of windchimes in a mountain breeze and a masculine voice says, “No, I think not.”

Then a second voice says, “I think not.”

Then a third voice says, “They're too dangerous together, split them apart.”

Jim has just enough time to look over to Spock, reaching through their bond, before he goes blind with pain. Something grabs him by the neck and yanks him backwards - he screams as his hands fly to his head.

II.

 _Not sure whose will be done  
_ _You can call me a sinner for wondering why_

Headlights swim into his vision and there's horrible honking sounds and Jim is still holding his head and he's still screaming.

His body twists as someone grabs him, but they quickly drop him.

Jim slams his head into the pavement, fingers gripping his hair, then he does it again and again - this physical pain a relief against what was going on inside his head.

There was no bond anymore, whatever the Olxol had done to him they'd torn him into two pieces with no idea where his other half was. And this, Jim is still screaming even as blood flows into his eyes, this wasn't supposed to happen - this was not a temporary bond, this was not a bond that could just be _severed_. This was a full commitment, 'til death does indeed us part, bond, and he needs to find it again, needs to shake it loose wherever it's been locked away.

Distantly, Jim registers a weight on him, sees red and blue flashing lights.

He feels something pinch his thigh - and briefly Jim feels like he's crashing, like gravity's finally caught up to him and pulling him down to the surface. But Jim can't go. He fights against it. He's on his hands and knees and there's still that weight on his back and he's shaking as his arms try to support the load.

Briefly, his vision focuses - sees a sidewalk, wet with fresh blood - he looks away, but the world swims and then he's on his side, crashing, falling down, down, down.

Jim dreams, he hears Spock yelling for him but Jim's underwater and he can't break the surface to answer. He swims up and up, but the surface gets further away.

He hears other voices trying to talk over Spock, but Jim ignores them - they belonged to hands that were pulling him down.

The nightmare then fades into something worse: nothing.

Jim hasn't been alone in his own head going on four years now - not since Yorktown when Spock found him in his assigned room of the barracks, clutching a small piece of metal, a piece of the _Enterprise_ that had reached out and bit him as he and Chekov had run for their lives.

They don't say anything - just stare at each other for a moment.

Spock walks in, shutting the door silently behind him, and kneels at Jim's feet, between Jim's legs, putting one hand over Jim's and that piece of metal, and the other to the psi-points on the side of Jim's face.

Jim feels a tear slide down his cheek at the same moment Spock slides into his mind, smooth and warm and Jim gasps. This was nothing like the meld with the Ambassador - there's a rumble then, in Jim's mind, a snarl of possessiveness that shoots lightning down Jim's spine.

They've been teetering on the edge of this for years, but there's always something that comes up - always some crisis or a crewmember in trouble or a Klingon picking a fight - Jim had long given up hope. It was why he was going to leave, why he was going to give _Enterprise_ to Spock (except she was gone now, and Jim suddenly had no parting gift).

Spock growls again, pressing in harder, trying to grab Jim's attention (always he has Jim's attention, alwaysalwaysalways) - Spock and Nyota ending things because, as she tells him, it wasn't fair to her to have to fight for his attention whenever Jim was around (alwaysalwaysalways), the Ambassador's death, Spock struggling with the decision to leave because he believes Jim can never love anyone as much as the _Enterprise_.

Jim's eyes slowly open and he's not even sure when they had closed.

“I was going to give her to you,”Jim says, his voice raw, thick. And he needs Spock to see, to _know_ what he was trying to say here.

He's saying: _I loved her when I first stole her from you. I loved her even as she killed me._

He's saying: _I loved you when you said “Not this time” and I loved you when you said “You violated the Prime Directive” and I loved you and I loved you and I loved you and you never heard me._

He's saying: _I stole her from you and I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I gave her back, you would know_.

“But then you would be gone,” Spock says, his eyebrows knitting together.

“But you would know,” Jim presses, then he's turning and opening his hand so that Spock feels metal against his own palm. “You would know, right? You would've understood?”

Spock's fingers curl around Jim's, that last piece of the _Enterprise_ biting into the both of them, his grip is strong as he demands, “Why did you not say anything?”

“Same reason you didn't,” Jim says, because he sees it now - sees it all burning bright behind his eyes, a singular thought, a mission, branded hot against Spock's inner self--

 _Not again_ , Spock is saying to himself every day, all day; every minute of every away mission he's at Jim's side. _Not again. I cannot lose him; not again. Not again. Not again. Not again._

There's _Not again_ and there's Jim looking at him, dying, asking after _our ship_ ; there's _Not again_ and there's Jim saying _I'm scared_ ; there's _Not again_ and there's Jim, looking at him, desperate, saying _I want you to know why I couldn't let you die_ and _why I went back for you (I loved you and I loved you and I loved you and you never heard me)_ ; then there's _Not again_ and there's Jim staring at Spock through glass, fingers slipping into the ta'al for the briefest moment before falling away.

Spock twists their hands so their fingers interlaced, the _Enterprise_ still with them, then he surges forward and Jim meets him, his hands fisting in Spock's hair, and, still melded together, they kiss. And, when Spock's fingers fall away from Jim's psi-points and they remain connected anyway, Spock isn't surprised.

They were locked together.

“Is it permanent?” Jim asks, arching up into Spock's touch.

“It can be,” Spock answers, nuzzling, biting. His father would be ashamed of him, making this kind of decision so rashly, without a clearer head.

Jim pulls Spock up from where he's sliding down Jim's body, says, “Do it. Don't leave me alone.”

And instinct takes over from there - something primal rears up in Spock, a spark from Pre-Reformation, from when things are taken and kept and protected and certainly never left to die. ( _Not again. Not again. Not again.)_

Spock puts his fingers in place once more and he says the requisite words as he thrusts into Jim, pushing into his body and his mind and tying them together.

They would never be alone.

Not again.

Needles, there're honest to god _needles_ in his arms.

A man with a beard and wearing blue scrubs yells at men in a uniform Jim has only ever seen in history books before one of them yells back something about pay grades and jurisdiction.

A woman touches a machine at his bedside and her eyes widen when she sees him looking at her before he slips away again.

Jim's awake, for real this time, and there's no one to greet him.

He's alone.

It's not long before a nurse comes to check on him, then immediately scampers away to fetch a doctor.

“You really did a number on yourself, son,” the man says once he's settled; there's a clipboard on his lap and his white lab coat has _Dr. C. W. Wallace_ embroidered on it. “Can you tell me what you remember?”

Jim remembers a race against time and a laughter like the sound of windchimes; he remembers “split them apart.” Jim looks down at his arm, at the needles and the tubes - he remembers that, where he comes from, this equipment is obsolete.

“Do you know your name?” Dr. C. W. Wallace asks.

Jim looks at the wall opposite him - it's taupe and there's a board with the name 'Doe, John' written on it, along with a series of numbers Jim guesses are his vitals. Those numbers would send Bones into a conniption.

“What about the date?”

Jim snorts. The date was written on the board and it really looks like Jim should've kept his goddamn mouth shut about not visiting the 20th century.

“Sir?”

Jim finally shifts his attention back to the doctor, the man's pen is hovering over the clipboard, poised to write. Jim clears his throat and sits up, says--

“Jim Kirk,” then he recites the date from the board on the wall after confirming it with the date on the doctor's clipboard.

“Mr. Kirk, do you remember what made you walk out into traffic?”

( _Not again._

_I loved you and I loved you and)_

Jim winces, his hand going to his forehead - whatever physical wound was there has healed, but the psychological one is still raw, it's open and bleeding. Carefully, Jim tries to move his thoughts away from the memory, avoiding thinking about it directly - and that seems to ease the sharp pain of the wound, if only a little.

“I remember,” Jim says, his voice a whisper, his eyes squinting against the brightness of the room.

“Can you tell me what it was?”

“ _Can_ I? Yes,” Jim answers, gritting his teeth against the pain flaring up again, as he leans deep into his bed, his hands going automatically to cover his eyes - except then he jars the needles and the tubes and Jim curses - anger and frustration overtaking the pain long enough for him to open his eyes and glare at his doctor. “ _Will_ I? No.”

The doctor narrows his eyes, says, “I see.” Then, with a smirk that sounds off warning bells, he asks, “Mr. Kirk, what kind of insurance do you have?”

Jim sighs, rubbing at his forehead with the hand not plugged into machines. “I'm in the goddamned dark ages.”

After their first accidental trip backwards in time, Spock had made it a point to study more Earth history. That also meant that Jim had to study it, too. There'd been yelling and a lot of frustration at the way things had used to be done that was only mitigated by Spock quirking an eyebrow and telling Jim that he was being illogical.

“Mistakes must be made,” Spock had said, “if one is to learn from them.”

Jim doesn't find the words as comforting now as he had then.

The doctor is making a lot of noises that Jim thinks are supposed to be threatening, but they lose their effect after a few minutes. Especially when a severe looking woman wearing a military uniform enters, her hair pulled back into a tight bun - her presence, once it's noticed, shuts Dr. Wallace up.

“Ma'am,” he starts, but she simply jerks her head towards the door.

“I'll deal with you later, Wallace,” she says. When they're alone, she turns to Jim, says, “Captain Kirk. I hope you're feeling rested - we have quite a lot to discuss.”

III.

 _Hey, darlin'!  
_ _Leaving for the next town  
_ _Less'n my sense catches up with me_

Her name is Admiral Stephanie Kent and she hands Jim a bag. In it is his uniform, then she hands him a small case that he knew held his identification and next of kin contact information - a list of three names: Spock, Sarek, and Winona Kirk.

 _Spock_.

If Admiral Kent and whoever she was working for had read the card, and he was sure they had, they would see this:

_**In the event of emergency, send comms to the United Federation of Planets, Starfleet.  
** _ **_Captain James T. Kirk, USS Enterprise, NCC-1701_ **

**_Name_** : S'chn T'gai Spock **Relationship** : Spouse **Race** : Vulcan-Human

_**Name** : S'chn T'gai Sarek **Relationship** : Father-in-Law **Race** : Vulcan_

_**Name** : Winona Kirk **Relationship** : Mother **Race** : Human_

Jim always thought it would be useless to have Spock listed as a contact, seeing as how it was always more than likely that if Jim was dead, Spock would be nearby enough to be notified (Jim had laughed at that; Spock had not).

“What's a Vulcan?” the Admiral asks, not quite letting go of the case.

Jim keeps his face carefully blank as he says, “I don't know.”

“Interesting,” Admiral Kent says, “because you're married to one.”

Jim makes sure he doesn't look away from her and she eventually smirks and releases the case.

“What's Starfleet?” she asks next.

“I don't know,” Jim answers dutifully.

“Interesting,” Admiral Kent says, parroting her own words, “because you're part of it. And it seems like you've done quite well if that rank is any indication.”

She didn't know the half of it, Jim thinks. There are twelve starship captains and Jim is one of them, and he likes to think that, between him and Spock and their crew, they're the best of them all.

“And the United Federation of Planets? Surely you can talk about that one.”

“I don't--”

“--don't know,” Admiral Kent waves her hand at him, as if batting away his words.

Jim offers her a brief smile, “I'm sure there are secrets you have as well, Admiral. Surely you can respect why I cannot discuss mine.”

“I would love to,” she says, “except I didn't suddenly appear in the middle of the road in front of oncoming traffic, screaming, before trying to bash my own brains out against the sidewalk.”

Pain flares and Jim winces again at the poke against his wound.

“Yeah,” he says, gritting his teeth, fighting to keep the true severity of the pain from his voice, “I'm not at my best.”

“So,” Admiral Kent starts, folding her hands behind her, “what _can_ you tell me?”

Jim looks away, looks at the board with its date and his numbers and says, “Kirk, James T., Captain. Serial number--”

Funnily enough, the admiral stops with her questions. Jim's not so stupid as to think that this is the end of it - he doubts he'll be allowed to leave whatever facility it is that he's in. (Not that that matters, a part of him thinks, where would he even go? These people were still sixty years from First Contact - he couldn't even escape to space. There was nothing for him here.)

_(Not again._

_I loved you and I loved you and)_

If there's one thing that can be said for the human body - it's its adaptability. Jim is used to hurts, old and new, wounds from before his time in Starfleet that never healed quite right. And this one in his mind, the one still bleeding, it's just another wound to get used to.

Except that's not quite right.

Jim feels like part of him is bleeding out, like he's dying slow.

He's leaking everywhere and there'll be no magic potion, no Bones miracle this time to pull him out of it.

Mainly, Jim is tired.

He's surprised they let him sleep.

The nurses eventually begin making noises about his muscles beginning to atrophy and how he needs to walk around.

It's a slow process.

The medical staff know he's in pain and they schedule him for every kind of brain scan they have to figure out what's wrong - Jim would tell them if he could stop laughing at the machinery they hook him up to, stick his head in. He knows they've put together some of the pieces about him, and if they hadn't, Jim's constant muttering of “archaic” and “only ever seen one of these in a book” should give them another clue.

Jim goes along with it as well as he's able - curious to see if the hole in his head has left some kind of physical mark.

Everything comes back negative for abnormalities.

There isn't one and Jim tries not to feel as disappointed as he does. He knows that that didn't make any less real, and the pain he feels certainly isn't some imagined thing - but he wants something to show for it. Something to point at and show the doctors and say, “This? This thing right here? You can't fix it. No one can.”

Or.

Or maybe there was someone.

Jim looks at the equipment in his room and begins running calculations in his head. He's slower than Spock is, but Jim's no slouch. He takes his IV, and flips the switch to stop the painkillers - it's going to suck, but he needs a clearer head - and he walks around his room as much as he's able.

Jim paces the room like he used to pace the bridge, eyes closed and lips moving, picturing Chekov at his side muttering equations and accounting for variables, Spock at his station (his wound throbs, bleeds out a little more, and Jim grabs hold of the pain and uses it as an anchor) working, working - sometimes Scotty is with them, the four of them with their heads bent together.

But Jim is alone this time and there's no one to double- and triple-check his work, to look at his list and see that he's accounted for everything.

Jim stops pacing, he _knows_ what he needs and he _thinks_ he can do what needs to be done. Now he just has to wait. His room is cleaned too often for him to be able to squirrel away materials and he's not fool enough to think he's not being monitored in some way. He needs to wait.

Jim never expects his mind, his wound, to heal - but he didn't expect it to get worse, and he realizes that waiting is no longer an option.

Jim asks for something to write with and when he's handed a pencil and a legal pad, he only barely manages to hide how holding the two items make him giddy. He's used them before, but paper is rare - it's available, of course, but it costs more than a few credits to get some.

The giddiness doesn't last though.

It's getting harder to concentrate, to hold the equations in his head.

So he writes them down (in Vulcan) and it helps ease the pressure behind his eyes, if only just a little.

Admiral Kent comes into his room and he looks up just long enough to acknowledge her before he returns to his work. She settles on a chair and watches him and doesn't ask a thing.

When he's done - the pad's been filled and his hand and arm have cramped from writing so much.

Admiral Kent walks over and looks at his notes.

“May I ask what language this is?” she asks.

Jim leans back in the bed and closes his eyes. He's tired. He's tired and his head hurts. Maybe too tired and too hurt to be able to put up a proper defense to her questions. So he decides to settle on a half-truth.

“It's my husband's language,” Jim says, rubbing at his forehead and at his eyes.

“And where is he?” she asks, and Jim had expected a _where is he **from** _question and it throws him. But the answer is easy enough because, this time, when Jim looks at her and tells her--

“I don't know.”

\--the admiral's eyes soften and he knows that she believes him.

Jim's wound pulses and throbs and Jim slams his eyes shut and puts his head in his hands and tries not to scream.

When the pain subsides back to a manageable level, Jim hands Admiral Kent a list of items.

“If there's any compassion in you people,” he says.

“What do you need with these?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowing as she puzzles out why he's asking.

“I need to call someone before it's too late for me,” Jim answers. “I don't know if it'll get through, but I need to try.”

“You're not going to try to ask me to keep this to myself, are you?”

“As much as I would like you to,” Jim says, giving Admiral Kent a small smile, “I know better. There's not much I would keep from my crew either.”

And Jim can see something like respect grow in her eyes.

It takes only a few hours for the Admiral to return and lead Jim, who hobbles along after her with his IV as best as his legs and his wound allow, to a conference room where the requisite materials were laid out.

Another few hours later and Jim has a working(-ish) deep space communicator. Then he realizes that he has indeed missed something - the strength of the signal would need to be amplified.

“I have one more favor,” Jim says, twisting in his seat to look at her.

Jim's given scrubs and pills to replace his IV - “How quaint!” - and then he's placed in a car and driven to another area of what he now sees is a large military base; the air is warm and dry and Jim instantly recognizes it as desert even though it's dark and he can't make out any discernible natural features.

Admiral Kent, and Jim can't help but notice that it's just the two of them, helps him from the car and into the building.

It takes a few more modifications to the communicator to amplify the signal enough to get it to where it needed to go.

Then, Jim starts speaking - closing his eyes against the pain - in Vulcan.

_Follow this signal._

_Come quiet, they don't know us._

_Find me._

_My Bonded has been lost to me and I am Alone._

_Find me._

_Find me._

_Find me._

_Find me._

_Find me._

_Find me._

_Find me._

He knows it'll be confusing for whoever receives his message - someone on this podunk little planet knowing their language and using it with so much emotion, they were liable to think it a prank. Probably from the Andorians. And, if Jim's history of Vulcan was correct, things were still a little tense between the two species.

Jim settles deeper in the bed.

He'd had to try.

He's immobile now, most days, sleeping his way to this slow death. He suspects that by the time anyone gets his message on Vulcan and haul ass to Earth, there won't be much they can do for him.

The Admiral visits, seemingly taking it upon herself to watch over him. He wakes up to her doing her paperwork at his bedside or fielding a dozen phone calls in a low voice in the corner of his room.

“I'm sorry,” Jim says to her one day, pulling down his oxygen mask so she can hear him. “I'm sorry I can't give you the answers.”

She smiles at him, says, “I don't think I'd be any different in your shoes.”

Jim huffs a weak laugh and she settles the mask back over his face.

“Whoever you called,” she says, “I hope they make it.”

Jim has only the strength to nod before his eyes close.

IV.

 _Corn liquor tastes sweeter in this town  
_ _Could it be it's the same as the last?_

This is what happens to Uhura.

After the laugh and the “split them apart” - Nyota Uhura starts screaming at them to back off, but then there's a shift and she's no longer on the bridge. Not on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ , anyway.

A man whirls around, one hand still on the ship's wheel and he sees Uhura and screams and she screams right back at him.

Then a wave breaks across the bow of the trawler.

This is what happens to Chekov.

Pavel Chekov awakens in a wet, cold snow in the middle of a forest - he has nothing but his Starfleet uniform and his memories. He whirls around - looking, looking, looking - as he calls for Sulu and Mr. Scott, for Mr. Spock and for Captain Kirk.

The only answer he gets is the distant call of a bear.

Pavel turns and he runs.

This is what happens to Sulu.

Hikaru Sulu wakes up falling through the air

He falls until he slams into water, his breath knocked from him, stunning him. He sees sunlight and shadows swimming above him as he sinks.

He tastes salt water.

This is what happens to Bones.

Leonard “Bones” McCoy is reading a report on supplies, preparing for the next battle - he would've preferred to be on the bridge, watching over Jim - but this was where he'd been needed. They needed his final say on what was to be readied, what was to be replicated.

Then Bones is standing in a canyon and he's looking up and up at that small sliver of bright blue sky. Behind him, a startled burro cries out and takes off.

This is what happens to Spock.

He's awake just long enough to recognize the room as the Katric Ark and then his mind folds in on itself as he screams in agony.

Admiral Stephanie L. Kent knows a lot about a lot.

But, what she doesn't know a lot about, and it's frankly quite disconcerting, is the reports of individuals appearing from thin air - all dressed in red or blue or yellow, all bearing a particular logo that matches the one on the identification card of one Kirk, James T.; captain; serial number--

She sends out orders, quiet-like, to gather them all and bring them to her.

Admiral Kent flicks her eyes to the bed, at the sleeping figure, ashen and thinning, and wonders if she's being selfish for withholding this from him.

He's a fighter, it's obvious, but whatever it is that has a grip on him, it's winning, and Captain Kirk won't be with them much longer.

It's a process, a slow one made even slower with her secrecy. She knows that someone's bound to notice, all she can do is hope she'll have enough time.

V.

 _I swear I've seen your face elsewhere before  
_ _Just as familiar as a bottle and a glass_

They tell him his name and a little about his heritage and, when he asks why his head hurts, they say--

“You have lost your Bonded.”

They say--

“Your body and mind went deep into a meditative sleep, to protect itself from the pain. Indeed, your human heritage has saved you. Were you a full Vulcan, I do not believe you would have survived such an abrupt severance.”

Spock puts his hand to his head and says, “I do not remember,” even as a face flashes in front of his mind's eye - blue, blue, blue eyes looking at him and saying _I want you know why I couldn't let you die_ and _why I went back for you_ \- but then it's gone before Spock can produce a name.

“A member of the High Council,” the Vulcan elder says, sounding almost miffed, “made three attempts to lock away your memories, but was only 98% successful.”

“And the other two percent?” Spock asks, reaching once more for those blue eyes - but he draws back when a sharp, hot pain lances through his skull.

“A key memory, I suspect,” the elder says. “It would not be locked away.”

“I have lost my Bonded,” Spock says, but there's something else - something niggling at him. “I have lost him, but he is not dead.”

The elder looks down at him, blinking once.

Then he says--

“One hour ago, we received a transmission. This is why we woke you.”

_Jim - (I loved you and I loved you and I loved you and you never heard me.) - that's Jim's voice._

“ _Find me_ ,” Jim says in perfect Vulcan, his voice breaking as he speaks. “ _Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me._ ”

Spock would weep from joy had he not been doubled over, retching, clutching his head and fighting against the scream building in his chest as the bond, stretched a distance it was never supposed to be stretched to, snaps back against him like the rubber bands Chekov always seemed to have in his pocket.

An elder steps in close and places their hand to Spock's psi-points, ostensibly to take some of the burden, to ease his pain, but Spock snarls out in warning - the primal instinct in him, the one that usually only rears up when he's deep in the _plak tow_ , is telling him to lash out because he's _hurting_ and his Bonded is _missing_. Spock rails against that instinct, calls on every bit of mental strength he has left to bury it where it belongs.

They get Spock into a small ship and he gives them the coordinates. If there had been more time, Spock could have made modifications to the ship's engine to see if he could coax another warp factor from it, but he didn't have the strength for such a task.

First Contact is still some years out and Spock is wary of changing history like this. Wary, but not unwilling.

( _I loved you and I loved you and)_

_(Not again.)_

( _Find me._ )

And it's a pattern with them - a dangerous one. Always jumping after each other and never looking at where they would land.

That instinct, the one Spock had tried to bury, rears up and tells Spock there is not much time left - his Bonded is dying.

VI.

 _Sunshine beating on the good times  
_ _Moonlight raising from the grave_

Jim sobs when he sees Uhura and she holds his face, careful of his mask, and she says his name over and over.

“What happened, captain?” she asks. “Are you okay? What's--”

And he can see the moment she figures it out, puts it all together in the way Jim's holding his head and the way he can't hold himself up.

“Oh, Kirk,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I'm sorry, captain, I'm so sorry.”

“I sent a message to Vulcan,” he says pulling down his oxygen mask, switching to the language because, even though he's grown to like Admiral Kent, even loves her for bringing his crew to him, he still doesn't know if the room is being monitored. “I think now,” he pauses to catch his breath, “if we're all here, maybe Spock is there.”

“What do you need me to do?” Uhura asks.

“Find Scotty,” Jim answers. “If I don't make it and Spock remains MIA, Scotty's up next. Tell him to find a way off-planet - see if you can find everyone who isn't from Earth. Bones will know--” Jim stops. Has to grit his teeth and rub again at his forehead.

“ _You_ know,” Uhura presses, “tell me. I'll remember.”

Jim does know - he knows every name and every face, every home world and species represented on the _Enterprise_. But then Bones is coming into the room and quietly ushering Uhura out - he's being softer with them then Jim's ever seen, and it breaks his heart.

“Status?” Jim asks.

Bones heaves a sigh and runs a hand through his hair. “That chief engineer of yours won't shut up about finding Keenser. He's complaining about how far away Royla is and how long it's going to take without the proper engines to get us there.

Jim snorts a laughs, careful not to jostle himself too much - were he stronger, he would chastise Bones about speaking so freely. But, as things were, Jim lets his eyes close as Bones recounts more stories of the crew - nearly three-quarters of which had been recovered, the exact number close to the number Jim knew to be from Earth proper. The rest would either have been born on colony planets or different homeworlds.

Jim doesn't dream like he used to - a mixed blessing. Losing dreams had meant losing his nightmares and he finds he can't complain too much about that.

Jim wakes up and he feels almost rejuvenated.

His head doesn't hurt.

He decides not to question it and to take advantage of the situation. He wakes Bones up with a wadded up piece of paper and, as obnoxiously as he can, orders, “Take me to my crew.”

There's a threat of hyposprays on Bones's lips, Jim knows it, but it dies uselessly with a grumble.

Jim's head might not hurt, but his weakened muscles protest as he tries to stand. It takes longer than Jim wants to admit for him to get out of his room - but, eventually, he makes it.

Whoever typically works on this section of the base has long since vacated - relinquishing it to the crew of the _Enterprise_ \- so Jim and Bones walk unmolested out of Jim's make-shift hospital rooms and into the building next door, a barracks with a large gathering area spanning its whole first floor. As he goes, it gets easier for Jim to walk.

0718, science officer and the human firewall for the _Enterprise_ , catches sight of Jim and drops the two mugs of tea he had been carrying, yells, “ _Captain!_ ” in that booming voice he had.

Before Jim can blink, his crew surrounds him - reaching out for him, calling his name - and he lets himself melt into them.

He only gets a few hours before he has to retreat.

“Your head?” Bones asks as he walks Jim back to his room.

“Yeah,” Jim says, “and no.”

Jim's head hurts, but it's not his wound - and Jim tries his best not to inadvertently poke at it to find out - it feels almost like a normal migraine. He says as much to McCoy.

“It's just a lot of people,” he adds, “when I've barely had any contact with more than one or two people at a time - if even that - for, what? Two months now?”

“I'm sorry you were alone, Jim,” Bones says.

“Me, too,” Jim says, looking at the sidewalk beneath their feet - not poking the wound, not poking the wound, not poking the wound.

Just as they get to the door a base-wide alarm sounds and Jim's heart leaps up into his throat. Could the Olxol have found them? They were supposed to separate the crew - did they know that they had (mostly) reassembled themselves and come back to do a more thorough job of it?

Jim watches in the near distance as two fighter jets take off from the runway and turns his gaze towards the sky, wondering where they were off to.

_Find me._

_Find me._

_Find me._

_Find me._

Someone asks him what he thinks is going on, but, just as Jim goes to answer, he feels something - some _one_ \- push against the wound, and it _hurts_ but it makes him gasp and stagger backwards.

And that's when he knows.

Jim takes off at a sprint - his legs initially trying to twist him up, before he finds his old strength and his muscles remember what to do. He was born running. He and Spock had found each other at a sprint (running towards a fight first with each other, then against time, then against Nero) and here they were again--

Jim's eyes are on the sky and he watches the ship - so, so Vulcan in its design - descends; they're alone, apparently having lost the fighter jets.

He hears voices, soldiers screaming, orders being shouted over the chaos.

But then that Vulcan ship has touched down and, seeing as how Jim hasn't been shot yet, Jim keeps running towards it. The door is barely opened before Spock is exiting--

They crash together, words coming out in a mixture of Standard and Vulcan, kissing the human way and the Vulcan way - but they don't get long for each other before, as an ocean wave breaks against the shore, their crew - _their_ crew - crashes down against them.

No matter what, Jim wasn't going to leave anyone behind. Together, he and Spock, their bond still raw but healing (finally, Jim's stopped bleeding out), and Uhura and Chekov and Sulu and Bones and Scotty, they all put their heads together and get to planning.

They couldn't stay here, on Earth, their impact would be far too great - they negotiate with the Vulcans to return with a larger ship, so that the crew of the _Enterprise_ could return with them while further arrangements were made to gather those who had been flung out a little farther.

“And afterwards?” Spock asks. “What do you propose we do once we have everyone?”

Jim smirks, “We go _home_ , Spock. Our Earth is still being attacked by the Olxol - we can't just leave them to that fate.”

“And how do you propose we beat them?” Scotty asks. “They swatted us pretty good last time.”

“I haven't figured that one out yet,” Jim admits. Then, with a small smile at Spock, he says, “But we have time to come up with something.”

End.


End file.
